


Ilhoon's "5 days of subtlety"

by jaeson



Category: BTOB, K-pop
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 10:09:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaeson/pseuds/jaeson
Summary: But since he has no clue whether the other likes him back – or how “crushes” are supposed to work in general – so he does what every other responsible human being would do at 3 a.m. and googles “how to tell someone you like them subtly”.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so this is dedicated to @jungsilhoon, happy birthday! (((((( also this was no beta'd, quite rushed, it's rly short and rly nothing special, sorry!!!))))))

**Ilhoon’s “5 days of subtlety”**

Jung Ilhoon has been crushing on his fellow group member Lee Minhyuk for a while now.

But since he has no clue whether the other likes him back – or how “crushes” are supposed to work in general – so he does what every other responsible human being would do at 3 a.m. and googles “how to tell someone you like them subtly”.

He clicks on the first link he sees, without paying attention as to what it is. When his browser finally loads the page, he is confronted with a list of 5 bullet points, each describing another way to let people know you _like_ them. Ilhoon deems the website trustworthy and starts to create his new project, which he later decides to call the “5 days of subtlety”.

**Day 1: “Touch your face and hair when you are with them”**

Ilhoon doesn’t get to be one on one with Minhyuk until late into the evening.

They are sitting around – each in a different corner, looking at their phones – in the living room, when Minhyuk suddenly approaches him and takes a seat next to him quietly.

“Ilhoon…” Minhyuk says, almost as loud as a whisper, while touching his knee gently.

He sits up, in the same motion unplugging his headphones, and looks at Minhyuk attentively.

Minhyuk starts to tell him something about having gotten a new role for a drama. Ilhoon cannot help but get lost in the way Minhyuk talks, waving his hands around when he gets to the exciting part of the story.

In the middle of all his thoughts, he remembers what he had read the night before.

Without any hesitation, he starts to touch his face. He runs his hand through his hair every three minutes, while he’s not doing that he prompts himself up on his hand, his fingers touching his chin.

“Ilhoon?” Minhyuk asks out of the blue.

“Hm?” he answers, looking up at Minhyuk.

“Is something bothering you? Are you frustrated?”

“Uh, no? Why?”

“I don’t know… I mean, you’ve been touching yourself over your face and playing with your hair…. I thought that maybe-“

“No! No, don’t worry, it’s nothing. Keep talking, I’m listening.”

Ilhoon doesn’t touch his face or his hair for the rest of the night.

**Day 2: “Dress up when you know you are going to see them”**

The next day, Minhyuk is supposed to be out for the whole day, or that’s what Ilhoon has been told.

He, however, gets a text from Minhyuk at almost 10 p.m.

“wanna go eat some meat?”

Ilhoon stares at the message for at least 5 minutes before finally answering with a simple ‘yes, meet you at the restaurant in 5’.

Ilhoon smirks as he looks at his closet. This was the perfect opportunity for him to do the mission of the day. He gets out some black skinny jeans, a white shirt and a cute tie.

….

Minhyuk is already there when Ilhoon arrives looking, if he may say so himself, extremely good. Maybe not extremely, but good.

The older boy looks him up and down with an awestruck look.

“Were you filming something?” Minhyuk questions while setting up the table.

“Oh, uhm… Not really?” Ilhoon can’t help but start to suddenly feel self-conscious now that Minhyuk’s whole attention is on him. “Does it look weird or something?”

“Not at all,” Minhyuk smiles. “It’s, how should I say it, you look too elegant, and too good, to be having _just_ meat, you know?”

“Ah, thank you?” Ilhoon blushes, while scratching the back of his head.

**Day 3: “Do some things for them you’d usually never do”**

The first Ilhoon thinks of is skinship. He’s not a big fan of it, but he knows Minhyuk likes it a lot. He wonders for almost half the day, how he should do it without being really obvious. But, in the end, he didn’t even have to think about it, the answer comes to him all on its own.

Eunkwang decides that all of them need to have more team work than they already have. After all of the members throwing some ideas on how to work on it, Hyunsik says the most logic and comfortable answer.

“Can’t we… spend time together? Watching TV or movies together? That… should be good enough for team work, shouldn’t it?” Hyunsik suggests.

It doesn’t even take a second for Eunkwang to agree completely.

…

The members prepare their living room for the night. Sungjae and Peniel had taken all of their mattresses and pillows and put them in front of the TV, making it look like their floor was made of only cushions, now both of them are exhaustedly sitting on the sofa.

Meanwhile Eunkwang, Changsub and Hyunsik are in the kitchen having the time of their lives while making almost a ton of popcorn. Minhyuk and Ilhoon, however, are already looking for the most comfortable spot.

“I think the right corner is the most comfortable,” Minhyuk shares, lightly bumping Ilhoon with his shoulder. “I’ll take it!”

Ilhoon pouts at him. He feels, not like himself, but if it worked, he could live with it.

“You… can just join me?” Minhyuk offers after having already sat down, patting the space next to him.

“O-okay,” Ilhoon stutters.

He cautiously manoeuvres his way through the mattresses – wondering how Minhyuk had done it so gracefully – and plops down next to the older guy.

It doesn’t take long for the others to join them. Sungjae – as the youngest – gets the privilege to choose which movie they are watching first. But Ilhoon doesn’t pay much attention to the movie.

He had been considering how to initiate the skinship with Minhyuk for at least 20 minutes now. First, he got closer to Minhyuk, then he began to lean on Minhyuk’s shoulder and now he’s back to wondering what his next step shall be. Lean his head on the other boy’s shoulder? Put a hand on Minhyuk’s knee?

When he was just about to put his head fully on the elder’s shoulder, Changsub makes him snap out of it.

“Ilhoon, are you getting snugly today?”

He couldn’t help but flinch and move three inches away from Minhyuk immediately, who only looks at him startled.

“No! No…” Ilhoon murmurs, sullenly. “Not at all.”

**Day 4: “Compliment them”**

Ilhoon has never been one to let out his feelings or show how much he appreciates people, never mind actually giving them loads of compliments, the most he had done until now is tell his parents and sister that “he loves them” on their birthdays or on special holidays. Of course, there had been some occasions where he had done it to the members, but he never did it completely willingly.

But now his plan requires him to do it, he wants to do it as often as possible, too. It’s just his luck that BTOB have a hair salon appointment together to prepare themselves for their now impending comeback.

They all enter happily, each taking their designated seats. Luck really seems to be on his side today because Minhyuk is seated right next to him, too. Okay, they sit next to each other almost always at the salon, but Ilhoon needs to gain confidence somehow.

“My skin looks terrible today…” Minhyuk mumbles under his breath.

Minhyuk starts touching around his face, stopping to look at little pimples for a longer time. Ilhoon knows he has to do it now or never.

“I… I actually like your skin a lot. It always looks great.”

His group member turns his head towards Ilhoon, an adorable grin placing itself on his face.

“Thank you!” Minhyuk says happily.

….

When they finish at the hair salon – Ilhoon thankfully didn’t have to do much to his hair – they all pile back into the van to drive to the studio.

Minhyuk is sitting in the middle of Sungjae and Changsub, right in front of Ilhoon. He leans forward so that his mouth is right next to Minhyuk’s ear.

“Your hair looks really nice,” he whispers right before Minhyuk is about to put on his headphones.

Ilhoon leans back just as quickly as he had leant in, not even giving Minhyuk a chance to say thank you.

….

While in the studio, all the members are sprawled on the couches. Because of the autumn weather and the sudden temperature drop, none of their voices are in a good condition. That’s why it even takes Eunkwang twice the time that it normally would to record his parts.

Ilhoon enjoys it the most when Minhyuk is recording though, just like right now. The older boy is in the booth, rapping along to the melody. It feels soothing to him, makes him feel all warm and squishy inside. Ilhoon doesn’t feel like that most of the time.

When Minhyuk finishes, he sits down next to Ilhoon. He leans his head on Ilhoon’s shoulder, his face looking worn out.

“Your voice sounded very nice today,” Ilhoon compliments.

Minhyuk laughs and just nods, his gestures are followed by a quiet “thank you”.

“Ilhoon, are you that in love with Minhyuk that you only give _him_ compliments now?” Sungjae asks all of a sudden, of course he grins smugly while saying it, too.

Ilhoon’s eyes widen immediately, his hands waving around in denial.

“No! No!” he almost yells. “Your voice is in a very good condition today, too, Sungjae!”

He makes a mental note to kill Sungjae when the both of them are alone the next time.

**Day 5: “If all of the above fails tell them you like them directly. Some people just need it spelled out for them.”**

Ilhoon doesn’t feel good when he wakes up. He knows what he has to do today and it seems all too difficult.

All the things that could happen if he really does admit to Minhyuk that he likes him go through his head, while he showers, puts on clothes and makes himself breakfast. But even if he took all the courage he has to tell him… How would he do it? When would he do it? Would they even be alone throughout the day? 

Changsub makes him snap out of his thoughts.

“Thinking of your boyfriend?” he laughs.

Ilhoon chokes on his milk.

“What boyfriend?” Minhyuk asks, coming from the living room as he starts to pat Ilhoon’s back.

Changsub only wiggles his eyebrows up and down before leaving again. Ilhoon – lightly, of course – smashes his head against their wooden table. Minhyuk only stares at him, obviously confused.

….

Ilhoon doesn’t know what happened, if their members are all mind-readers or if they just did things without really noticing that they were quite helpful.

In the morning, they had all agreed to meet at the dorm after their schedules to once again spend some quality time together. This time they had planned a games night to actually start “training” their team work.

All the members, however, had _coincidentally suddenly not had time for the games night_ , which left Ilhoon alone with Minhyuk. Of course, the older one hadn’t thought anything about it, that’s why he is just laying across their couch with his legs resting on Ilhoon’s lap as he looks at his phone right now.

Ilhoon side-eyes him every now and then, to check out whether to tell him or not.

….

Ilhoon gives up on telling Minhyuk how he feels because after four attempts to start _the conversation_ and failing miserably, he is not having any of it.

But Minhyuk apparently has other ideas.

“Changsub was joking today morning, right?” the older one chirps from the other end of the couch.

“About what?” Ilhoon responds, putting his phone down.

“About…. you having a boyfriend?”

Ilhoon feels his cheeks burn up. He doesn’t know how to answer. Was this his chance?

“Of course I don’t have a boyfriend, look at me,” he manages to utter out, pointing at himself. “I mean… I… I do… like someone…. but… as if that would ever happen, really.”

Minhyuk sits up immediately so that he is sitting right next to Ilhoon, leaving his phone behind on the corner of the couch, his face a mix of excitement and disappointment.

“Really? Who is it?” Minhyuk smiles.

“Uh… well…” Ilhoon stutters. “…You?”

Ilhoon’s heart feels like it’s going to explode.

“Me?” his group member looks at him with wide eyes.

“Yeah… yeah… you…”

“I’m this good-looking, no wonder you like me,” Minhyuk brags.

Ilhoon doesn’t know if the other is serious or joking; it makes him feel kind of bad. He looks up at Minhyuk, only to see the other smiling fondly at him. His doubts vanish as Minhyuk suddenly kisses him on the forehead softly, his lips lingering there for a few seconds.

“I like you, too.”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
